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    Suggestion: for MSE in particular, maybe we could create one big meta thread where all the answers are suggestions for which posts to nominate as status-review. After an answer reaches a certain score, the moderators add the tag to the linked post (and delete that answer to make room for others to rise up). This would pass the decision-making responsibility from unelected moderators to the wider community. Commented Mar 12, 2020 at 23:13
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    @Randal'Thor I reckon that would swing things far too much in the opposite direction. We definitely still want some gatekeeping to prevent "importance" being determined by sheer popularity alone. Otherwise we might as well just ignore MSE and child meta issues entirely and only focus on MSO problems. Commented Mar 12, 2020 at 23:18
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    I'm less concerned with allowing MSE moderators this responsibility, not only because I trust them individually but also because moderation is not free from community review, whether moderators are appointed or elected. I really doubt there will be much daylight between what MSE mods and the community as a whole agrees should be tagged. On the other hand, I am definitely concerned with burdening MSE moderators with this responsibility, for the reasons stated here. Commented Mar 12, 2020 at 23:24
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    It's worth noting that the primary intent of MSE moderators is mainly to reduce workload on SE staff moderating the site. Prior to November 2018, this site was moderated entirely by staff members. (As an example of where MSE mods don't have a say, it's in the featured tag here since that's network-wide rather than per-site.) Commented Mar 12, 2020 at 23:42
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    We actually can set those tags. We just typically often don't because we don't have the level of insight into the actual status of the flags in question. Commented Mar 13, 2020 at 0:27
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    I can't make my mind up if this post is preemptively accusing MSE mods being incompetent or trying to shield them from mishaps. I opted for the first explanation as that seems to be the strongest message. This post has my down vote for that. If it can be edit to make its intent more obvious I'm happy to revisit. Commented Mar 13, 2020 at 7:35
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    @rene My reading of this post is that it's nothing about the MSE mods themselves, their competence or otherwise, and just about the principle of giving unelected officials all the power to decide which feature requests from the whole network of users are worth putting forward to implemented. Even being sure the current trio would do a good job at it, can't you see why that might not be a good look? Commented Mar 13, 2020 at 8:42
  • @Randal'Thor no, even with your extended explanation, which is appreciated, I still don't understand why that might not be a good look. It still feels as taking a stab at mods, which in general and on MSE specifically will always face opposition from me. Commented Mar 13, 2020 at 9:04
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    @rene OK, assuming you're one of those who's lost a lot of trust in SE recently, thought experiment: let's say the company makes some more bad decisions, Meta mods object, SE summarily fires them all and replaces them with yesmen who'll support the company unquestioningly on everything. But there's already an established policy to leave status-review tagging here entirely up to the Meta mods. Would you think that's a bad thing? Commented Mar 13, 2020 at 9:07
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    I get the concerns being raised in this answer, with regards to the possibility of overloading the moderators, and to the fact that they are appointed and not elected. Re overloading: as the post notes, the CMs will work closely with the moderators so that we can adjust our approach if needed and assist the mods as much as possible. Commented Mar 13, 2020 at 11:20
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    (cont'd) Re not elected: I want to highlight the fact that this is a test, and that after it's concluded we can reevaluate how we'll operate going forward. Also, the sister post on the Mod Team linked to in the question is a place where all mods from the network can talk about how to handle certain flags, or whether posts make good candidates, etc. So there's room there for the MSE mods to not have it all on them :) (will make an edit to make that more evident) Commented Mar 13, 2020 at 11:20
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    @rene, I'm definitely not trying to accuse the MSE mods or imply anything about them. I have a lot of respect for them. Rather, I wanted to raise a point about the principle. Commented Mar 15, 2020 at 22:46
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    @JNat The test of appointed moderators began in November 2018. How long is that test supposed to take? Commented Mar 16, 2020 at 20:07
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    Dunno, @SonictheAnonymousHedgehog. I said "this is a test" above as a reference to the escalation procedure, not that. Commented Mar 16, 2020 at 20:13
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    @FedericoPoloni The vast majority of moderator actions are non-controversial (unless people want to make controversy out of nothing as a troll). Comments are always ephemeral, so removing them gets less oversight. Closed questions can be reopened by vote. When there are concerns about moderation, users can (and do) raise the issue on Meta. Commented Mar 27, 2020 at 17:45